This is the week it will happen. It is not a final step, anymore than social security was, or medicaid and medicare, but it is a big step. A huge step.

It is impossible to post every day and do what is required to earn a living so we have turned to what seem to be "guest bloggers" making the same argument as we make today. So we have heard from Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and John F. Kennedy so far.

Tonight we hear from President Johnson, a much maligned president in some respects, who maybe gets more credit for the passage of medicaid and medicare than does the memory of President Kennedy which was as much a reason it finally passed as anything else. Before we do, though, it is worth keeping in mind President Kennedy's somewhat bitter comments when medicare failed to pass in July, 1962 as we hear Republicans try to claim that, because they voted for the bill after all other attempts to stop it failed by 1965, that this was something they championed, though they oppose what is is before the Congress today.

President Kennedy put the lie to all that in surveying the wreckage of the proposal as it stood before he was murdered. The 1962 defeat was in the summer before the off year elections of that year and the President put the issue squarely before the public:

I believe this is a most serious defeat for every American family, for the 17 Million Americans who are over 65, whose means of support, whose livelihood is certainly lessened over what it was in their working days, who are more inclined to be ill, who will more likely be in hospitals, who are less able to pay their bills.

I think they have suffered a serious setback today. But this issue is not confined to them. All those Americans who have parents, who are liable to be ill, and who have children to educate at the same time, mothers and fathers in their 30's and 40's, I believe they have suffered a serious setback. In 1960, with Senator Anderson, I introduced the Medical Care for the Aged. A change of four votes in the Senate in 1960 would have provided for its passage. This year we came closer.

I think the American people are going to make a decision in November as to whether they want this bill, and similar bills, to be passed, or whether they want it to be defeated. Nearly all the Republicans and a handful of Democrats joined with them to give us today's setback. The election in 1960 was very close. It has meant that nearly every vote in the House and Senate is close. Some we win by one or two votes; others we lose. We have to decide, the United States, in 1962, in November, in the Congressional elections, whether we want to stand still or whether we want to support this kind of legislation for the benefit of the people.

You are going to have a chance to make that judgment. I hope that we will return in November a Congress that will support a program like Medical Care for the Aged, a program which has been fought by the American Medical Association and successfully defeated. This bill will be introduced in January 1963. I hope it will pass. With your support in November, this bill will pass in 1963.

For President Johnson, the mission upon President Kennedy's death was clear:

Today John Fitzgerald Kennedy lives on in the immortal words and works that he left behind. He lives on in the mind and memories of mankind. He lives on in the hearts of his countrymen.

No words are sad enough to express our sense of loss. No words are strong enough to express our determination to continue the forward thrust of America that he began.

The dream of conquering the vastness of space -- the dream of partnership across the Atlantic -- and across the Pacific as well -- the dream of a Peace Corps in less developed nations -- the dream of education for all of our children -- the dream of jobs for all who seek them and need them -- the dream of care for our elderly -- the dream of an all-out attack on mental illness -- and above all, the dream of equal rights for all Americans, whatever their race or color -- these and other American dreams have been vitalized by his drive and by his dedication.

And now the ideas and the ideals which he so nobly represented must and will be translated into effective action.

In a message to Congress early the next year, President Johnson echoed President Truman's 1945 entreaty, still unfulfilled 19 years later:

The American people are not satisfied with better-than-average health. As a Nation, they want, they need, and they can afford the best of health:

--not just for those of comfortable means.
--but for all our citizens, old and young, rich and poor.

In America,

--There is no need and no room for second-class health services.
--There is no need and no room for denying, to any of our people the wonders of modern medicine.
--There is no need and no room for elderly people to suffer the personal economic disaster to which major illness all too commonly exposes them...

But progress means new problems:

--As the life span lengthens, the need for health services grows.
--As medical science grows more complex, health care becomes more expensive.
--As people move to urban centers, health hazards rise.
--As population, which has increased 27 percent since 1950, continues to grow, a greater strain is put on our limited supply of trained personnel.

Even worse, perhaps, are those problems that reflect the unequal sharing of the health services we have:

--Thousands suffer from diseases for which preventive measures are known but not applied.
--Thousands of babies die needlessly; 9 other nations have lower infant death rates than ours.
--Half of the young men found unqualified for military service are rejected for medical reasons; most of them come from poor homes.

Clearly, too many Americans still are cut off by low incomes from adequate health services. Too many older people are still deprived of hope and dignity by prolonged and costly illness. The linkage between ill-health and poverty in America is still all too plain.

And so, when Medicare and Medicaid were finally before him, to be signed into law, President Johnson did so in Independence, Missouri with President Truman by his side, and he explained why:

it was really Harry Truman of Missouri who planted the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick, and serenity for the fearful.

Many men can make many proposals. Many men can draft many laws. But few have the piercing and humane eye which can see beyond the words to the people that they touch. Few can see past the speeches and the political battles to the doctor over there that is tending the infirm, and to the hospital that is receiving those in anguish, or feel in their heart painful wrath it the injustice which denies the miracle of healing to the old and to the poor. And fewer still have the courage to stake reputation, and position, and the effort of a lifetime upon such a cause when there are so few that share it.

But it is just such men who illuminate the life and the history of a nation. And so, President Harry Truman, it is in tribute not to you, but to the America that you represent, that we have come here to pay our love and our respects to you today. For a country can be known by the quality of the men it honors. By praising you, and by carrying forward your dreams, we really reaffirm the greatness of America.

It was a generation ago that Harry Truman said, and I quote him: "Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection."

Well, today, Mr. President, and my fellow Americans, we are taking such action--20 years later.

If you have read the previous "guest bloggers" you know that what was signed into law in 1965 was not what President Truman had in mind; only what could be achieved against the relentless opposition of those who want to profit from the inevitable illness to which we must all succumb. It was a great achievement to be sure, but it is now over 35 years later and time to take the next step: still not fulfilling what Presidents Roosevelt and Truman had in mind, but moving forward to that truly Great Society President Johnson envisioned.

Time, indeed, marches very slowly.